In recent years numerous developments have again highlighted the importance of Weapons Law for preventing and regulating armed conflict. The use of chemical weapons in Syria, the ups-and-downs of the Iranian Nuclear Deal or the policies of the current US administration brought NBC weapons back to public attention. The conclusion of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons raised high hopes among civil society actors and numerous States but faces rejection by nuclear weapon States. Dual use questions in life-science research have provoked political and ethical debates in numerous member States of the Biological Weapons Convention.

Thus, Volume 21 of the Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law (YIHL) will focus on the general theme: ‘Weapons Law’. Submissions can address the use of weapons in contemporary and future armed conflicts, recent developments in the context of the Biological Weapons Convention and Rome Statute, and ongoing debates on technical developments in cyberspace and with regard to drones and autonomous weapons. The YIHL aims to look at this theme from a variety of perspectives and thus invites submissions from authors with a strict lex lata as well as a lex ferenda perspective, an operational or technical focus, as well as an ethical, philosophical or political science point of view.

Moreover, there is, of course, the possibility to submit articles on international humanitarian law topics not related to the general theme ‘Weapons Law’.

Interested authors should send their submission before 1 October 2018 to the Managing Editor of the YIHL, Dr. Christophe Paulussen: c.paulussen@asser.nl. Articles should be submitted in conformity with the YIHL guidelines. The Editorial Board aims to publish Vol. 21 (2018) at the end of the ensuing year, in December 2019 at the latest.